Guardian Angels

It's been another busy week here at the Cast household. With my training going on at the Post Office, and Joel heading out to HHD (Husker Harvest Days) we've been a "drop and go" family. For those of you not familiar with HHD, it's an AWESOME thing for farmers/cattlemen/men in general! It's a three day event that includes harvesting demonstrations, cattle working demonstrations, and TONS of booths and stuff to look up! It's a big event, 10 city blocks wide by 10 city blocks long! Let me tell you it's ONE BIG THING!!! And boy do you get your exercise by the time you've walked 1/4 mile just to get in from your car, and then try. key. word. try. to get through it all!

Joel decided for the first year that he was going to take some cattle out to show them off! It worked out really well, and he had a great time. The heifers did great and were calm as ever! Joel had a great time, and enjoyed meeting all the people that came through. The highlight of his trip though was when a man came up to him and commented on our bull that we'd put on Randy Schwang's sale back in March. He wanted to know if we were going to have any more bulls, heifers or anything for that matter, to put on the sale next year! Pretty impressive! Joel was just over joyed that someone remembered us!

Someone wasn't happy at all to see her daddy was she?

Here's Joel just having a good time, see his pretty teeth?

Here's one of the girls Joel spent three days with

And here's the other!

While Joel was gone some of our other heifers decided they didn't want to be in the pasture anymore and they wanted to gallivant around the city. They ended up in the cemetery, and dad ended up having to catch them because I was in Lincoln buying this. (but I'll tell you about that one later! :) )


Last night one of them decided she would take two of the calves and go out gallivanting again! Thank goodness she didn't take them to the cemetery and they stayed close. We were able to get them in pretty easily, but decided it was time to start feeding hay. No more getting out!

Off we went to get the tractor and bale feeder from dad's house. Joel headed out to grandpa's house with the big ole tractor, running at about 4 miles an hour (it's a 3 1/2 mile drive!), with the bale carrier, and bale feeder wired on. So I knew he had time, and I waited a little bit to head out. When I finally caught up with Joel he was about 3/4 of a mile from grandpa's house. I stopped him to tell him I was running home to get his mud boots. Before I could even get the 5 blocks home, and get in the house Joel had already called the house, my cell, and the house again. When he got a hold of me this is what I heard. "Call the sheriff and get over here, I just got rear-ended." You never think that it's going to happen to you, or that even someone wouldn't be paying attention and rear-ended IN. A. TRACTOR.

The other driver wasn't paying attention to the road and was messing with his radio. He'd saw the light off the tractor but didn't even realize that Joel was going as slow as he was. When I got there the bale carrier was broke off, and the bale feeder was around the other driver's truck. There was a smashed windshield, and the passenger ended up needing stitches for cuts. The driver was okay, just shaken up.

Joel ended up getting taken in because he was having some neck pain along with one Major headache. Thank goodness his CAT scan came back okay and he was then checked over, stitched up and sent home. He needed two stitches, chipped his front tooth, and possibly his bottom front teeth. Other than that he's doing okay, just sore as all get out. We're thanking our guardian angels that no one was hurt.

This is what is left of the bale feeder. It was round. Not so much any more, and will probably be scrap metal!

This is the bale carrier's top. It broke the welds, and cracked some of the metal on the back side.

Remember my husband's pretty teeth? Well here they're not so pretty! :(

And here's a look at my husband's FIRST. set of stitches EVER.

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Remember when I told you about MacKenzie starting preschool? Well I've been meaning to get the pictures up for a while now, but I thought while I was doing so many pictures, I'd get them here too!!!! She's doing great with preschool.

Can you tell she was excited?

Although she wasn't as happy when she got to school. She started to cry and didn't want to get out of the car, until she saw Uncle James. Thank goodness Joel's brother was there and was making jokes! Rylyn, James' youngest, is in the same preschool class as MacKenzie, so they have a good time together.

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Since I'm so far behind on pictures I'm going to give you a preview of what's to come. What do you think these cute kiddo's could be getting ready to do with mud boots on?